BATON ROUGE, La. – Ninety minutes before tipoff Thursday, and a parking spot within a half-mile of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center is as scarce as a bland Kim Mulkey outfit.

Fans keep rolling in. They arrive in pickup trucks and SUVs, which hop concrete curbs and park on the muddy grass on a damp, foggy night on the bayou.

Sixty minutes before tipoff, and you won’t find an empty seat. The house is full of LSU fans in white T-shirts.

Thirty minutes before tipoff, and they’re Swag Surfin’ in the PMAC.

They’re here to see Angel. They’re here to see Flau’Jae. They’re here to see Kim. Surnames are superfluous for those superstars around these parts.

They’re here to see the defending national champs. They're here to see No. 1 South Carolina.

I think they saw the next national champion, too. I’m just left unsure which team is best positioned to capture the hardware.

On this night, No. 9 LSU dominated the first half before Dawn Staley’s juggernaut dug in and stole a 76-70 victory in front of 13,205 fans who stretched the seams of a humble arena.

Super squads, South Carolina and LSU are, with shot makers all over. Each team had five players reach double figures.

South Carolina (18-0, 6-0 SEC) won it, but LSU (18-3, 5-2) blew it. A handful of Tigers mental blunders proved costly. With LSU clinging to a two-point lead, Angel Reese fouled out with 4:02 remaining.

Game over.

LSU couldn’t beat this opponent with its superstar on the bench. In the final four minutes, LSU missed Reese’s rebounding, her defense, her ability to muscle up buckets in the paint. It missed her mettle. If Reese didn’t foul out, you could convince me the result would have been flipped.

“Four minutes left? That’s too much time to not have Angel Reese on the floor,” LSU’s Flau’Jae Johnson said. “… Without Angel, we lacked that experience we needed.”

Officials whistled Reese for some ticky-tack fouls earlier in the game, but the fifth foul was a no doubter – the last of a handful of crucial LSU miscues.

“We tried to capitalize on her absence,” Staley said. “When you lose Angel, you lose a big part of what they do.”

LSU also hurt itself in a pair of end-of-quarter situations in the first half. The Tigers had opportunities to hold for the final shot at the end of the first and second quarters. They put up early jumpers instead and missed. South Carolina hit 3-pointers at the buzzer to close each quarter.

Six points decided the game. Hmm …

“This game comes down to possessions,” Mulkey said, while referencing those end-of-quarter moments.

It came down to big shots, too.

South Carolina hit enough of them. If there was one chink in the Gamecocks’ armor last season, it was their inability to make outside shots.

Iowa dared South Carolina to hit jumpers in last season’s Final Four. The Gamecocks couldn’t do it and lost. In a year’s time, USC’s 3-point shooting went from weakness to strength.

Te-Hina Paopao hit the 3-pointer at the close of the first quarter. MiLaysia Fulwiley drained one just before the halftime buzzer. And Bree Hall swished two 3-pointers in the final three minutes, while Reese watched from the bench.

“We don’t win as many games if we’re not hitting 3s,” Staley said. “I wish we’d shoot it a little bit more, because we don’t take bad shots. We don’t take bad 3s.”

They badly needed them, too, because Reese clamped down on USC’s star center Kamilla Cardoso for most of the game. Cardoso and her top sidekick, Paopao, combined for just six points in the first half.

USC’s supporting cast – a supporting cast so good they would be stars on another team – delivered this victory.

South Carolina exited as the favorite to win the national championship, just as it did after routing LSU last February. We remember what came next. LSU won its first national title in program history.

Can they do it again? Mulkey wouldn’t make any predictions, but she declared that LSU “sent a message” by taking USC to the wire, something few opponents have done this season.

“We’re not going away,” Mulkey said.

Neither are the Gamecocks.

Rematch, anyone? Next time, with even higher stakes.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's SEC Columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: South Carolina wins it, LSU blows it, and one will win national title